Red, White and Blue Skies

We left New Brunswick under the bluest skies we’d seen on any morning of the ride. It was going home day – back to the United States – Eastern Standard Time zone, dollar bills not coins and road signs in English, not English and French. It was also the genealogy leg of the trip. We were headed to Buckfield, Maine, the birthplace of two of Jason’s Brock ancestors, via Lincoln, Maine, the final resting place of another.

Most of the morning was spent riding through rural – no strike that – wilderness Maine. The homes, if you can call some of the ramshackle buildings that, were few and far between. Lincoln was the first city, and I use that term only because they had more than one traffic light and a few retail stores, we went through since we crossed the border at Vanceboro, Maine. At a construction slowdown I saw a cemetery on my right with a center hill and lots of appropriately aged headstones. I leaned into Jason and said, “There it is,” but he shook his head negatively citing the GPS. We pulled into Tom Horton's for a coffee (we had sun and blue skies, but the temperature never reached 60), an egg sandwich and a regrouping. The North Lincoln Cemetery, where Find-a-Grave indicated David Brock, Jason’s 3x great-grandfather was interred, was at the intersection of Military and Town Farm Roads and in the opposite direction of where we were. Coffee break complete, we headed off to find it.

The North Lincoln Cemetery is easy to miss if you’re not specifically looking for it. The yard is down a side street without any large or visible signage on the main road to mark it. It was a small yard with an abundance of white limestone headstones, so finding David, we thought, would be a snap. We were wrong. Both Jason and I walked and rewalked, maneuvering between every row of stones, but no Brocks were to be found. The cemetery was well manicured and well maintained, so it wasn’t likely that the stone had been damaged (others had clearly been repaired) or removed. It was simply missing.

“Let’s try the other cemetery,” I suggested, disappointed that we’d rerouted through Lincoln for naught. We headed back to the center of town.

A small sign was posted at the side entrance to the second cemetery – Lincoln Cemetery, so Jason drove in, following the grassy road to the front and center section of the cemetery where the oldest stones seemed to be located. I looked to the left and the right as we slowly motored through, wondering how I was going to find 4 headstones in such a large burial yard, if they were even there, considering this was not the cemetery they were supposed to be interred in.

Jason parked the bike and put the kickstand down. I jumped off and rested my helmet on the mirror, turned right and gasped. “What?” Jason asked, concerned. “There is NO WAY this happened!” I cried. In front of me, in the cemetery I choose, right where Jason parked, were the headstones of David Brock, his sister Betsey Brock Buck and her husband, Cyrus, and their mother, Susannah Brock.

Sometime after John Brock III, Jason’s 4x great grandfather died in 1822, his wife Susannah Crandall Brock removed to Lincoln. According to the 1850 census she was residing there with her daughter Betsey, David’s twin, her husband, Cyrus and their family. I hoped to find some Crandall headstones, since Susannah was born in Lincoln, but to no avail. More research is still needed on her branch of the tree. David and his family removed to Lincoln by 1840, according to census records, and they were in Bangor by 1855. I’m not certain when he returned to Lincoln, but his headstone states that he died there.

We headed to Buckfield, the small Maine town where John Brock III, his brother William and sister Martha once lived. David Brock was born there, as was his son, Alvan D. Brock, Jason’s 2x great grandfather. I have a copy of John’s will, (which included two sons I didn’t know he had) but no record of exactly when he died or where he is buried.

Buckfield Village Cemetery (also known as Damon Cemetery) is a large cemetery, but knowing that we were looking for mid-1850’s deaths, we headed toward the older gravestones. We (okay - Jason) found John Brock and his wife, Tamar Farar Brock. John was the son of John III and brother to David. We also found the headstones of several other Farrar family members and the stones of William, John III’s brother and his wife, Sarah Brock.

John Brock III and Susannah’s sons, with the exception of Leonard, who predeceased his father, left Buckfield as they matured and married. Only David remained. He married Judith Farrar, who died shortly after giving birth to their son, John in 1828. In January 1830, he married Livonia Coburn. After David died, Livonia moved to Lovell, ME to live with her daughter, Julia. She lived in Abington for a number of years and died of pneumonia in Medford, Massachusetts in 1888. I’ve not been able to locate where she is buried.

It was a fascinating day, but always so much more to discover.

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Oh Canada!

It was an early start to the Father’s Day leg of our journey. We were up, showered, coffee’d  and on the road by 7:45. Before we left, we chatted briefly with a really cool couple who were saddling up their Harley trike about riding in general (they recommend a spin on the Green Eyed Snake), but specifically about the switch from two to three wheels. Marketing genius for Harley I must say. It definitely extends one’s riding life.

The Maine coast continued to be spectacular, with stunning views and quick teasing glimpses through the thickets of fir and pine trees filling the air with the persistent smell of balsam and Christmas. Americana is everywhere – flags waved proudly from front yards, front porches and telephone poles, welcoming us like old friends. The American spirit is so prevalent here, we even saw a bald eagle soar overhead as we rode through Gouldsboro, it’s white crown unmistakable against the backdrop of towering pines.

It was a blustery day so we finally surrendered to the wind and layered up in Machias – another first. I’m used to peeling off layers as the temperature rises, not adding them as we push further north.  I swear it dropped 10 degrees right after we crossed the border into Canada. But before we got there, we stopped at a few scenic overlooks and took in the incredible views, including the St. Croix River, which was simultaneously rustic and majestic. 

Once in Canada, we detoured slightly to St. Andrews, or St. Andrews By-the-Sea, as it is commonly called.  This tiny seaside town – population less than 2,000 - was founded in 1783. It retains much of its colonial charm, and is piping with quaint character and bungalow type dwellings clad in cedar shakes painted in shades of gray and brown courtesy of Mother Nature's weather brush.

We found a similar roadside treasure in Lepreau Falls, just outside of St. John. Early area settlers relied on the Lepreau River for transportation and fishing and the power to move logs and run sawmills. During Prohibition in the US, American bootleggers used this relatively isolated spot as a rendezvous point to load their boats with liquor. Bootleggers would smuggle the liquor from New Brunswick to Maine and sell it at black market prices.

Sun shone like a beacon in spots along the way today, but it couldn’t quite muscle its way through the insistent blanket of clouds. And the closer we got to St. John, the more dismal the sky became.

At first blush, St. John is nothing to write home about – or blog about for that matter. Of course, I can only comment on what I’ve experienced so far, snaking our way up, down and around a roller coaster of hills to our hotel. So far, and maybe it’s the influence of the wind and grey fringed clouds, it feels very much like an old urban town. And quite frankly, it is. It’s the oldest incorporated town in Canada, but rich in architecture, galleries and quiet historic charm.  Uptown, I’m told, is where we need to be, but we’re only here for the night so a true St. John experience will require a return trip.

Stay tuned.

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2014 Harley Ride: Day One

Day One of our 2014 adventure is in the books.

We left Massachusetts under suspicious skies, but luckily, the threat of rain never materialized.  This ride was a year of firsts – first on the new Harley, first time the ride originated in Massachusetts and the first time we’ve headed north instead of south.

Today’s destination was Bar Harbor, Maine and dinner at Stewman’s Lobster Pound. The road to the promised land  - at least to the promised lobster – was Route 1. We traversed the Bay State and hugged the Maine coastline, skirting any hint of bad weather and sailing with the sea breezes.

Route 1 was littered with Victorian era homes transformed into B&Bs or antique stores.  Every so often we’d pass a lonely cemetery with its white limestone headstones standing stoically as reminders of lives past or meander through a Main Street town with trendy restaurants, small boutiques and a walkable downtown, like Portland, where we stopped and enjoyed lunch at the Dry Dock Tavern & Bar.

Jason loves navigating the Harley along these secondary roads, listening to me sigh as the antique stores pass by. There’s no place to put anything, packing for 2 weeks is challenge enough, but the only thing I can get at an old roadside cemetery are pictures. I don’t usually ask to stop, because it’s too easy for me to get caught up in the genealogy, but there were just so many of them today, I couldn’t resist.  I spied a collection of leaning headstones and asked to stop. The yard wasn’t marked, so all I know about it for now, other than the names of the interred, is that we were in Verona, Maine, just outside of Bucksport. I scrambled up the small grassy incline and surveyed the small collection of headstones, some ramrod straight, others leaning and broken. Some weathered and illegible, others with crisp details chiseled into smooth granite.

After a 15-minute fix, I was back on the bike and we were back on the road.

Bar Harbor and its rugged coastal landscape is home to Cadillac Mountain—part of neighboring Acadia National Park. The first settlement in the area was recorded in 1761 by Abraham Somes, a sailor and fisherman from Massachusetts.  In 1855, the first hotel, Agamont House, and the first wharf were built. Even back then, Bar Harbor was a place of inspiration for many people. That tradition continues today. Bar Harbor is beautiful, but after 8 hour on the bike, what inspired me was lobster.

You can’t go to Maine and not have lobster. Our dinner at Stewman’s started with appetizers  - a blueberry margarita, a slightly pink, perfectly sweet libation garnished with a slice of lime for me and a Sam Adams for Jason. We both opted for the Downeast Lobster Experience Dinner – steamed lobster, mussels, corn and potatoes with the obligatory drawn butter. And for dessert, blueberry pie.  Yum.

And now - yawn. It's been a long day and another one is scheduled for tomorrow as we head on to New Brunswick, Canada.

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